Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Freer Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely accept that we have got to do more to help people to get from the very bottom to the very top. That is why we have saved the per pupil funding and why we are increasing the pupil premium. When we look at what happened over the last few years, since 2004, child poverty rose by 100,000, inequality reached the highest level since 1961, and 5 million people were stuck on out-of-work benefits. That is why we need to change the way that we help people to get on in life, and that is exactly what we are committed to doing.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

Q14. As we approach Holocaust memorial day, will the Prime Minister confirm that the Government will generously donate to the Auschwitz-Birkenau restoration fund?

[The Prime Minister]

I can do that. Auschwitz-Birkenau is a very powerful reminder of the ultimate consequences of intolerance, and it is only right that it should be preserved to bear witness to the deaths of the millions of victims who perished there and to act as a stark reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. The director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation has recently visited the UK to discuss funding with a number of Government Departments, and we are also involved in EU discussions. I think everyone in this House knows how important it is to maintain these memorials. We obviously remember the holocaust, but we must also remember that there have been other acts of gross inhumanity more recently. We have to go on remembering to stop that happening again.